Brother's Killer
by Unoriginality
Summary: Spoiler up to ep 34 in a "you gotta squint really hard" sort of way. Introspective piece, 3rd person POV limited to Ed. Ed comes to terms with what a brother's killer can give as penance.


_Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is your brother, Abel?"  
"I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?"  
The Lord said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground."  
-Genesis 4:9-10_

_"Perhaps I died on that day."  
-Alphonse Elric, episode 51_

**Brother's Killer**

The Fullmetal Alchemist. The famous Edward Elric. That scrawny bean of a kid whose small stature belied the the power that lay in those two hands. A true genius in alchemy, who had passed the State Alchemist exam at the young age of twelve, making him the youngest State Alchemist in all of Amestris's history. He was the only person on the military's official records that could transmute without a circle.

He was powerful. Dangerous. A mystery to most, a boy who kept to himself, famous for taking the side of the public and helping people, yet little was known about him. Where he'd come from. What exactly he was doing.

The Fullmetal Alchemist. The Elric Brothers. A distinction was often not bothered with between the two, and the acts of the brothers as a team were usually simply credited to the name of Fullmetal. Few people had seen the two apart anyway, the tall and hulking form of the younger towering just over the elder's shoulder.

And yet...

And yet.

Ed was the one people paid attention to. The one they called great. He often suspected that people saw Al as little more than an accessory, a gimmick that he carried around with him to gain more popularity. What a wonderful older brother, always looking out for his little brother. The younger one was lucky to have such a good big brother.

Honestly, he wondered if people ever could even remember Al's name, for as well as they knew his.

Part of him was just as glad, actually, that Al rarely recieved the spotlight. Attention could be dangerous for someone like Al, and the last thing Ed wanted was more trouble for his brother. Besides, this was his burden to carry. Al's was heavy enough as it was.

Sometimes, it flitted through his mind to wish that Al had stayed in Rizenbul with Winry and Aunt Pinako back then. It would've been better for him, maybe. But the thought usually was dismissed. Al had made this choice, the same as him, and truth be told, the selfish part of Ed was glad for it. He sorely doubted he could've handled this journey half as well as he had if Al hadn't been right there beside him every step of the way.

And yet.

An older brother's duty is to protect his younger brother. His brother's keeper.

That duty never mentioned anything about being his brother's killer too.

Everything he did, every lead, however hopeless it seemed, every mission he took, order he followed, or anything he might otherwise have never dreamed of doing... he did it for that brother that everyone thought was the one in the shadows.

Nothing was farther from the truth.

If not for Al, Ed would not be where he was, would not be who he was. It was Al that kept him going, that gave him reason to put one foot in front of the other and walk forward. Al was the one that shone, while Ed just scrambled to do what he could to make sure it stayed that way.

One of them was already walking headlong into darkness. The other would never have to see that path, if he had to damn thousands of lives to death himself to make sure of it.

There was a contradiction in his thoughts, he realized, as he let his mind wander in the early dawn hours, standing in a stranger's house, the room around him dark and cold like a tomb. His brother was the one that still hadn't had to face the sort of darkness that he had. He'd never known the burden of killing a man. He'd never known the burden of being able to look someone in the eye and hate them so much that it made him physically ill. Somehow, despite everything they'd been through, Al still managed to retain a sort of naive innocence to him.

And yet he considered himself Al's killer. The one who'd taken life from him and trapped him in that not quite living hell. A light in the darkness, lost somewhere in the shadows.

Ed couldn't even begin to imagine the sort of life Al had to lead now, even as they walked side by side every day. No... he could begin to imagine. To have limbs that responded to command but couldn't feel the world around them. But going through life with two limbs made of glavanized steel couldn't compare to a whole body of cold iron.

His brother's keeper, and his killer.

This was his closest guarded secret.

That was why he journeyed. That was the reason that people never saw, or if they did, they never fully understood the weight of it.

Atonement. Penance. Forgiveness. Things Edward Elric's heart ached for, but they felt so far away. Like his heart was sinking, held down by its burden of steel and blood, that freedom forever just out of his reach.

If forever was what it took, then he'd search forever. He'd save Al from that dark prison he'd bound him in four years ago if it fucking killed him. Give him a second chance. Restore him to life.

His brother's keeper. His brother's killer.

You can't revive the dead.

It always came back to that. His train of thought had circled around and come to rest right where everything had started in the first place. He hadn't learned, hadn't grown up at all. People never really did though, he'd come to realize.

Ed looked out the window at the rising sun, feeling cold, the sun's rays doing little to warm him. Was that what hell was like? It wasn't painful. It wasn't anything. Hollow. Empty. Comfortably numb. What could be worse than feeling like this all the time?

His teacher, he and his brother, whoever had made the other homonculus... they'd all proven, one by one, that the dead could not come back to life. That death was the ultimate prison- there was no escape from it.

The air around him hung heavy with the scent of blood, thick and intoxicating, by this time a few hours old, dried and clinging to his hands. It would wash off. Just like the blood from that... _thing_ had washed off. He looked back over his shoulder at the expansive room.

It seemed only fitting that Greed would have left no body. A half person, a mistake created by some stupid, foolish human some years ago. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

That woman on the beach the other day. In Mustang's office just a few months ago. The voice in a cold, wet alley.

Ed shivered and turned back to look out the window, putting the dark room and its grisly scene behind him again.

Out of sight, perhaps, but not out of mind.

Behind every birth was a death. In order for one to live, something else had to die. He'd learned that back then, they both had, back on that island. They knew it. They knew it and somehow neither had expected to have to kill something to give life back to their mother.

He'd killed his brother back then to give life to that creature that was supposed to be their mother. What had he killed to trap Al in that state of living death? Himself, maybe. That child he'd been, that he'd never be again. Was that really a birth though? Or maybe it was Fullmetal that had been born that day, born as every person is, screaming and in pain, confused and lost and never really certain of what the next step should be.

What had been born from Greed's death, he wondered. Another layer of darkness, weighting the scales. A life for a life... could one life be heavier than another?

Maybe... maybe he'd tip those scales enough that Al could live... and the brother Al remembered could have another chance too.

After every death followed a birth. So who would have to die so Al could live?

Set back the clocks. Undo mistakes.

Penance. Atonement.

Stare into the abyss. Run headlong into darkness. Sacrifice one soul for the freedom of another. Four years of suffering, tears, pain, hard work... the offering of a brother's killer.

This was his equivalent trade.

He could only hope it was enough.


End file.
